


Coveted

by georgiamagnolia



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: M/M, Slash Implied, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-18
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgiamagnolia/pseuds/georgiamagnolia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jealousy is reserved for that which one has and then does not, not what one has never had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coveted

I don’t think of myself as a jealous person. Certainly I have experienced covetousness and envy. I covet what is not mine and I do not have the restrictions of traditional religion to make me feel guilty about that. I have been envious of another’s position or opportunities and that has made me do my best to better my own, or at least to make the most of what is mine. But jealousy is reserved, I believe, for that which one has and then does not. And I have never had the one thing I desire most.

My partner makes everything look deceptively easy. He has a way with putting people at ease, at making them feel safe and letting their guard down. He does it with silly jokes that make the target feel like they are on the inside of something momentous; he does it with compliments that from any other agent would sound flowery and false. His charm is not contrived, he believes every word he says in the moment he says it. It is that honest belief that lures his target in and gets us what we want, which is usually the password to a secret meeting of THRUSH or an innocent to join our operation for a few days and be the decoy while we flush out the enemy. I’ve never asked him, perhaps for that brief amount of time he does believe whatever honeyed lies he slips in their ear. Maybe he is just a master of deception. I know him well enough to be assured that he does not lie to himself as often as he lies to practically everyone else in his world. It is the nature of our job after all, hazard of the trade.

I have watched him countless times as he charms and seduces and doesn’t quite make concrete promises and always gets the job done. What I find the most amazing is that there are never any hard feelings, no harsh words in reply when he thanks a mark for their time and attention, no recrimination. Rarely has he had one of his plans blow up in his face, less dangerous by far than if I did certainly. The few times I have been the one to take the softer path, he has been entirely absent, as if he can’t watch another use his course. Perhaps he couldn’t help but critique and so has made sure to be away. This must be it because recently we found ourselves locked up by an enemy and needed to convince a young lady to distract the guards while we made our escape. I leaned in to the girl and found my partner curling his limber fingers over her shoulder and turning her, kissing her, stunning her and sending her on her way to dazzle the guard with her alluring looks. There is nothing like fresh desire to whet the appetite of anyone watching.

I will admit my own attention wandered for a moment. Not that the young lady wasn’t pretty, you understand, she was perfectly lovely as young ladies go and I have sampled enough to be choosy, thank you. My attention wandered to that hand curled over her shoulder, and kept coming back again and again to those flexible fingers so deceptive in their grace.

It is not as if I have not felt those same hands myself, felt the strength in them pulling me out of danger or binding a wound when they were too late to pull me back. Those hands have comforted and warned, healed and cajoled. And for a split second I felt the overwhelming need for those hands, wanted my partner to curl those fingers around my own shoulder and pull me in, wanted those hands to push her away so that he might take her place before me.

I find myself watching his hands now, telling myself that it is the flash of the stone in his ring that has distracted me and not the desire to watch his hands map my bare skin. This desire is not altogether foreign to me, I had my adventures in school and other places. The fact that this desire is for my decidedly ladykiller partner, that is new.

I am not jealous of Napoleon and his charming ways with every woman we meet over the age of consent and under the age of dead. I cannot be jealous of that which I have never had. Covet and desire and envy, yes, those I will admit to, if only to myself.


End file.
